Why is the game that good rated these days?

[Davy Crockett]

It was terrible bugged back in the days and was not quite as good as sacred 1.
I remember our german magazines destroyed the game and gave it bad ratings.
I didn't liked it too, there was much better RPG's out these times.
Why has this game such a good steam rating? Wtf

#79 Best PC Game of 2008

[Roderick]

The genre is Hack&Slay.
If you look at other Hack&Slay games, you will find some huge differences.

1. Open World.
Games like Diablo, Torchlight, Path of Exile... do have a predetermed way you have to go. In Sacred 2, you can go where you want (storyline is still linear, though).

2. Charakter Development.
In Sacred 2 you can take a Dryade or Highelf, who are basicly designed to be archer and sorcerer, equip them with meele weapons and all the skills it needs (weapon proficiency, armor mastery...) and have some challenging fun playing them... and you will see the end of the game at least on low or normal difficulty. Playing just for fun. Equipment-restrictions are very sparse, so a Highelf can ware a heavy armor, too.
Other games have your playstyle restricted up to the point, that heavy plate armor just can't be worn by your premde sourcerer class charakter.

3. Grafics.
Some people (including me) just hate comic style grafics. Sacred 2 tried to make everything look realistic. And even if the grafic is outdated, it still looks better to me than some comic style new games.

4. Details.
Details on armor, weapons, environment, babbleing people in cities, funny quotes from charakters and enemies... there is much to enjoy while other games may look good, but feel barren.

Sure, nothing beats Witcher III or Skyrim in open world, grafically there are better games out there. But I don't know of a better Hack&Slay game which has this all (and other small things, but I don't want to bore you) combined.

If you know one, please tell me. I like Hack&Slay (&Loot).

About the bugs... there is still an active (small) community working on the next community patch. The last one (0.15) got rid of many bugs and tied together some open quests and unlocked some item-skills. So much about the bugs. ^^

[kaori]

Cause it resembles diablo in a way, huge world, multiplayer, graphics which needed a GOOD PC(back then), people couldn't even pirate it due to strict drm it had which was funny( I believe its still uncrackable to this day, useless due to "GOG" now.) Gameplay mechanics were fun and advanced compared to any hack slash even today, and as for story(can be meh, wasnt really feeling it). Does get boring tho end game, grinding is a chore beyond 70+ I say, you could get through all the difficulties of the game by rushing under level 100 considering cap is 200, PS3 version you could abuse couple of bugs for grinding to 200 easier.

People didnt really like it back then cause of high requirements on PC. Was prety fun on consoles due to splitscreen couch coop like diablo 3. Plus the game is rather cheap on sale lately($3.00 currently...)

[Siddha]

Sacred 2 has a good Steam rating because players like it
It is a good open world hack & slash
It runs much better today than when it was released
and there's an excellent community patch that is still being developed
if you dont have it you should consider buying it - it's on sale for $3 at the moment

[loc]

There are very few games like Sacred 1 and 2. While everyone builds copy-paste hack and slash games, merely copying Diablo (which I never liked - too simplistic and boring). Sacred 1 and 2 have more indepth RP mechanics like Ultima games. A huge open world to explore, things to discover, hack and slash combat, deep and highly custom character progression, mounts, crafting and coop... it's basically a more modern Ultima with LAN support. Basically my dream game.

Sacred demonstrates there's a lot of potential still for what you can do with an ARPG but everyone just makes crappy Diablo clones instead. Kind of like what happened with WoW and MMOs. I don't hate Blizzard but damn they steer the industry to the LCD every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time.

[Cavelord]

Seraphin

[ericove]

I played Sacred 1 and it was good, but I like 2 better. 1 had the mount armour, needing a pearl for the portal, limited inventory, etc. 2 is very well developed and I've enjoyed it since it came out. Other games just seem to be lacking the details.

[ericove]

I totally agree with others in that there are still people trying to make the game better by developing patches. I enjoy the side quests. Games like Myst were quality games, but you had to follow the order of things. Red Alert 2 is a another game that's enjoyable and people are still making patches for. Microsoft I think enjoys destroying games with their updates so I'm very thankful for communities that develope good patches.